


Medium

by josephina_x



Series: Magic, Mayhem, and Madness [3]
Category: Smallville
Genre: Aftermath, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Ghosts, Mental Institutions, Possession, Season/Series 02, Witchcraft, Witches
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-02-07
Updated: 2013-11-01
Packaged: 2017-11-28 11:41:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 19,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/674001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/josephina_x/pseuds/josephina_x
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lex can talk to ghosts. That doesn't necessarily mean that he <i>wants</i> to, though...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Sunday, November 3, 2002 -- Belle Reeve, Room 405

**Author's Note:**

> Title: Medium  
> Author: [josephina_x](http://josephina-x.livejournal.com)  
> Fandom: Smallville  
> Pairing: Clark, Lex  
> Rating: PG-13  
> Spoilers: through 2x06, takes place shortly thereafter; occurs prior to 2x07; spoilers for later seasons  
> Word count: ???+  
> Summary: Lex can talk to ghosts. That doesn't necessarily mean that he _wants_ to, though...  
>  Warnings: Un-beta'd.  
> Disclaimer: Not mine, not-for-profit.  
> Comments: Yes, please! :)  
> Author's Note: Next after "Unbeliever"; third in the "Magic, Mayhem, and Madness" series. In terms of the timeline, this picks up directly after "Vessel", then jumps forward to the end of "Unbeliever" and continues on from there.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Lex blinked open his eyes and supressed a groan. His head was pounding and felt like it was stuffed full of cotton, while his neck ached something _fierce_.

_...Ah?_ he thought as he realized he was flat on his side on a white floor. A white floor that felt... odd. Did he have any white floors at the mansion?

He tried to shift himself upright and fell back. ...Huh. The white floor was fluffy.

_...I can't move my arms,_ Lex realized. At first he'd thought they were numb, but he could feel them when he tried tensing his shoulders and flexing his fingers, so that wasn't right...

He tilted his chin towards his chest, despite the twinge that went through his neck at the movement, and stared.

_Oh._ Well, that explained a lot.

Lex tried an experimental tug or two, just because he was curious. _No, they've tied me up quite well in it,_ he thought of the straitjacket he was currently wearing. _I wonder why I'm not more worried._ He'd had a very bad experience with straitjackets from the whole Club Zero affair, after all.

...Come to think of it, that rather harrowing experience had also involved ghosts. Tangentially. Somewhat. Almost.

Not quite.

Then again, maybe his lack of fear and panic had something to do with the fact that he had not woken up alone in a room, stuck with only a madman or two for company... in whatever place this was.

Lex tried craning his neck around a bit, slowly, carefully, and then blinked and blinked again.

"Hello there," said the man with brown hair, who came into view and slowly crouched down in front of him. "Looks like you're finally awake."

No, definitely not a madman. Lex was fairly sure they looked _much_ crazier than _that_.

"Who are you?" Lex croaked.

The man cocked his head slightly. "Come again?"

Lex grimaced, then worked his jaw a few times, swallowed hard. He _wanted_ to be heard properly. He wanted that very, very badly.

_**Who are you?**_ he tried again.

The man's eyes lit up. "Ah," he said, turned to sit down against the wall. "Sorry about that; very rude of me." He let his legs splay out in front of him, one knee tucked up loosely to his chest. "We should do introductions!"

Lex nodded, or tried to. He grimaced, then shoved himself across the floor like an inchworm, using his legs. Once he managed to get his back against the wall, he slowly shoved himself against it, kicking his legs out and digging his heels into the floor hard until he had enough pressure at his back so that he could squirm his way up the wall.

He was panting slightly from the effort by the time he was done, but at least he was sitting up.

The man just sat there, watching him, waiting patiently.

He turned his head to face the man and sagged against the wall slightly, letting it take his weight. " _ **I'm Lex Luthor**_ ," he said.

The man nodded once. "I thought so," he said. "My ex-wife told me earlier."

Lex frowned slightly. " _ **Your ex-wife?**_ "

The man nodded upwards, and Lex turned to see.

...His mother was here, too. She was standing there with her arms crossed, staring down her nose at another woman. Brown-haired, glaring daggers, the woman had her hands on her hips and radiating a very aggressive air.

They were arguing.

Lex blinked and frowned slightly. _**Why am I having trouble following the conversation?**_ he thought.

"You were drugged," the man said, and Lex blinked as he remembered the sudden unexpected pain in his neck from before, at the mansion. He winced and rotated his head on his neck, trying to dispel a little of the tension, at least.

Lex tipped his head back and stared at the ceiling for a bit, then closed his eyes and tried to get his mental bearings... and failed miserably at his first attempt.

So Lex turned back to the man. For whatever reason, he was easier to focus on, and he seemed to know what was going on, as well.

"Ah, damn, and I'm still being rude," the man said with a slight rueful twist of his lips. He cleared his throat and opened his mouth to--

_**You're Lewis Lang**_ , Lex suddenly realized, his brain finally kicking into gear.

The man blinked at him, then his shoulders dropped slightly.

"Oh, and here I was going to be all scary and ghostly," he said, sounding a little put out. At Lex's incomprehension, he turned to face him and added, "You know, all _wooooooooo_ ," he said, lifting his arms and wiggling his fingers at him, while raising and lowering his eyebrows very quickly several times.

_**Really**_ , said Lex.

"Mmhmm," said Lewis, stopping his weird motions. "I'll have you know you completely ruined it!"

And then the man crossed his arms in a huff and lowered his chin, staring at him.

_**You know,**_ Lex said slowly, considering. _**That sort of look doesn't go over nearly so well without a pair of glasses on your nose over which to stare.**_

The man let out a sigh and gave up the 'act', slumping sideways against the wall. " _I know_ ," he moaned. "Such a bother." He gave Lex a considering look of his own. "Though most people usually don't quite get it when I do that."

Lex just shrugged a little, the entire straitjacket shifting about him as he did so.

"How did you know it was me, anyway?" Lewis asked, looking curious.

_**Ex-wife,**_ Lex said, with an indicative nod of his head as he glanced up at a still-irate Laura Lang. _**I finally placed her face.**_

"But we didn't divorce," Lewis pointed out.

_**'Til death do you part,**_ Lex pointed out right back. He wasn't a moron.

The spark in his eyes and the sudden grin and laugh he got from Lewis in rapid succession surprised him though.

"Hah! Nobody ever gets that!" he exclaimed, pointing at him. "You're good!" He leaned forward conspiratorilly. "Not quite an ex-parrot yourself, though. _You_ got _better_."

Lex blinked at him. Then blinked at him again as he processed that.

_**You have a very twisted sense of humor,**_ Lex informed him dryly.

"So I'm told!" the man agreed happily enough, sitting back a bit again.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Lewis seemed content to just sit by him, not quite shoulder-to-shoulder. He didn't seem inclined to start a conversation unless Lex prompted him.

So Lex went back to focusing on the fight. Lex was still having trouble following the argument the two mothers -- _ex-_ mothers? -- were having out right in front of him.

He got snatches now and again, things like "You shouldn't have--!" and "I wasn't the one who--" and "If you hadn't--!" and "Don't be absurd, you started this--"

But all he really got from it was that Laura was incredibly angry for some reason, and Lillian was for all intents and purposes, dismissive and cooly unconcerned.

"Fine!" Laura ended, throwing up her hands. "I'd think you'd have more concern about-- ____ ___ ___ --but then you'd-- ____ __ ________ ____ _____ ___ _____ --then, wouldn't you!!!"

Lillian scoffed and turned away. Laura stormed over and plopped down right next to him, on the far side of the wall from her ex-husband.

"Honestly, that woman!!" she exclaimed unhappily.

"You've no-one to blame but yourself, dear," Lillian scolded mildly, turning away and wandering farther across the room.

Lex turned his head towads her and blinked. _**Blame?**_ Lex wondered. _**Blame for what?**_

Laura grimaced, then turned towards him a little bit.

"I'm a witch," she said.

_**Ex-witch,**_ Lex automatically corrected, then he paused as he realized...

"Ugh," he groaned, knocking his forehead down against his knees.

" _Lewis!!_ " Laura scolded.

"But it was the perfect setup!" Lewis grinned. "How could I not! It was so worth it!"

And then he proceeed to grin even wider as he got a pair of scathing glares sent his way; Lex was pretty sure he wasn't alone in his censure. It really had been pretty awful.

"I'm sorry, Alexander," Laura started, looking a little worried.

Lex frowned over at her. _**Sorry? ...For what? Being a witch?**_ he wondered, confused.

"What?" Laura said, startled. "No!" she exclaimed, then suddenly looked a little off-put.

She glanced over at Lewis and exchanged a long unreadable look with him. Lewis smiled and shrugged. Lex didn't quite follow it, except that Laura suddenly looked very tired, for a ghost.

"Ah, well," Laura said, wringing her hands a little. "I suppose I should start from the start, then."

_**Please,**_ Lex thought hard.

Laura gave him a weak smile. "You see," she said, "witchiness is a bit... hereditary, and..."

_**Lana inherited your magic witch-powers but doesn't know it, let alone how to use it properly.** _

Laura winced.

"Told you he was quick," Lex heard Lewis mutter behind him, sounding almost... proud?

Lex glanced over his shoulder at him for a moment, but then Laura began again.

"Lana isn't really a witch," Laura said. "Not... quite. --She's got a great deal of magical potential," Laura rushed to explain, "but she can't use it own her own or cast spells with it."

"Usually," added Lewis.

Laura sighed.

_**Halloween had something to do with it, didn't it?**_ Lex realized grimly.

"Yes," Laura admitted. "And I am so sorry," she continued. "I shouldn't have used you like that."

Lex blinked at her. _**...Used me?**_

"Ah," Laura stammered, looking nervous. "What do you remember about the ceremony with Lana...?"

Lex frowned again. _**I remember the ceremony perfectly well,**_ he told them carefully, realizing that this seemed to be a sore spot for Langs. _**It's the part after that I can't quite recollect.**_

It didn't quite escape him that Laura had specified the ceremony, making it clear that she'd known about at least one of the two others, possibly both.

Laura looked too embarrassed -- or possibly ashamed? -- to continue. Lewis cleared his throat and Lex turned back to him. "She sort of..." he made a vague handwavey motion, "possessed you. Just a little bit."

Lex blinked at him. He turned to look at Laura.

"It was only about five minutes or so, I swear," Laura said, biting her lip.

He stared at Laura a long time.

_**I don't understand,**_ Lex thought. _**That makes no sense.**_ He shook his head, trying to get rid of the cottony feeling that was still stifling the edges of his thought process. He needed a clear head for this, or a clearer one, at least. _**Lana wanted to talk to you. Why would she be angry about that?**_

Laura looked startled.

_**Did you think it would hurt me when you did it?**_ Lex asked.

"Oh, no!" Laura denied vehemently. "Not at all!"

_**And you were trying to help her,**_ Lex continued.

"Yes," Laura said.

_**Would things have gone any better if you hadn't?**_ Lex asked.

"What?"

Lex sighed. _**If you hadn't possessed me,**_ Lex tried again, _**would I still have had a problem with the ghosts and whispers the next day? And the day after that?**_ He remembered Friday rather well ...except for the parts where things seemed a little hazy. _**I was jumping at shadows and feeling nervous as hell all day Friday. It felt like I was being watched, even if I didn't hear the voices until later. Did that happen because... was that worse because you possessed me?**_

Laura looked startled, then shocked.

Then she looked a little worried, and a great deal reflective.

"I don't know," she said finally. "I think..." She looked up at him grimly. "It almost certainly still would have happened. It would have taken longer, though."

_**How much longer?**_ Lex asked, wondering, _**Would I have gotten better... would it have stopped or gone away on its own?**_

Laura grimaced. "It might have taken a month, maybe. Maybe a little longer, a year on the outside," she told him. "Even if I hadn't... and you'd only done the ceremony with Lana just the once..." She sighed. "That would've been enough to break down the barriers enough that you'd eventually have ended up..."

" _ **All right,**_ " Lex said reasonably. " _ **Then it's probably better that you did, because otherwise I'd have had no idea what was going wrong with me.**_ " _**I'd have probably gone insane, or thought myself so, otherwise.**_

Laura looked unconfortable at the thought.

"Oh, no worries!" Lewis said. "I'm sure we would've come along eventually to help straighten things out."

_**...Eventually?!?** _

Lex turned to him and gave that rather discomfiting thought the look that it deserved.

Lewis met it head on with a grin.

Laura sighed.

Well, on to the main question. _**I understand that what happened to me may not have been preventable--**_

"Only if someone had managed to stop Lana, or if she'd performed it sometime other than Halloween," Lewis confirmed.

_**\--but is there any way to undo this... spell... or otherwise reverse the effects?**_ Lex asked.

""What? My stunning good looks and wonderful company isn't good enough for you?" Lewis said with a gasp, slapping hand against his chest and feigning an incredibly uncredible amount of shock.

Lex leveled a glare at him. _**No.**_

Laura let out a stifled giggle. Lewis didn't bother, letting out a loud "HAH!" and slapping his knee.

"Ah," Laura said, wiping at her eyes. "I'm sorry, I--" She shook her head, then took a deep breath, looking serious and sympathetic. "Unfortunately not. It's not just the spell anymore," she explained. "That stopped once Lana broke the circle and left. But the spell called down upon you has wrought a change in _you_."

_**How is that possible?** _

"It's because you seem to have an affinity for it. If you hadn't..." She shared another glance with Lewis. "Well, suffice it to say that things would not have progressed this far in the first place, and we never would have needed to be having this conversation."

_**An affinity?**_ Lex frowned.

"Mm, well," Laura began, "you do have red hair. You must have irish ancestry in your line someplace. Those folk tend more towards the spooky side of things than not, at least a little."

"And you've died for a bit and come back and kept going, before --and not just the once, either!" Lewis enthused. "That makes you practically undead already!" he pointed out cheerfully.

"I--" Lex felt a bit disquieted, and not just because Lewis' friendly slap to his shoulder had felt decidedly odd. It had been like touching a cold hand to a cold surface -- an odd sort of pressure, and a temperature variation that intellectually he knew he should've been able to feel. _**Wait, how do you know about my hair?**_ he asked suspiciously.

"Oh," Laura said. "Well, it's sort of there. --But not there," she added in a rush as Lex looked a little stunned.

_**...I have ghost-hair?** _

"Nah," Lewis said. "That's just a witchy thing. You get used to it," he said good-naturedly.

_**Well, at least no-on else can tell,**_ Lex thought.

"Sure they can!" Lewis said.

_**What?**_ Lex said, turning to him.

"Yeah," Lewis confirmed. "You have red hair riiiiight _there!_ " he said, and pointed.

Lex reared his head back, then frowned upwards, then paused.

_**Are you pointing at my eyebrows?**_ he asked, outraged, staring at Lewis in shock.

"Yup," said Lewis. "They're hairs, aren't they? And they look a bit red in color, don't they, dear?" he said across Lex to his ex-wife.

"Ummm," sad Laura, dissembling.

Lex looked between them, and he could feel his eyes widening.

_**Oh,**_ he thought. Then he felt angry. _**Oh, son of a--!**_ he half-cursed, kicking a heel against the fluffy padded floor in annoyance.

"Eh, if it bothers you that much, just dye 'em," Lewis waved off.

" _ **I am not dyeing my hair!**_ " Lex insisted, spine ramrod straight, and feeling thoroughly irate. Though, truth be told, he was more angry that... _**Why didn't anyone ever say anything before!?!**_

"You ever tell anybody that you didn't like having red hair before?" Lewis asked.

Lex muttered and grumbled under his breath, hunching his shoulders a little and slumping back against the wall grumpily.

"Well then, don't be complaining how your friends don't tell you things if you don't ask 'em to know," Lewis said reasonably. "It's not as though anyone else would have reason to tell you."

"I can't believe this," Lex said tiredly. He tilted his head back and let it thump softly against the wall.

"Well, things wouldn't have been quite so bad if Lillian hadn't--"

"Oh, don't get all holier-than-thou with me, witch--" his mother interrupted.

"--and left you wide open," Laura ended angrily, glaring up at Lillian again, and Lex's brain was spinning from trying to follow the two conversations, not that he'd managed it.

_**Wait, just.... wait, please,**_ Lex tried. _**I'm not... I'm not unhappy that I can talk with my mother again!**_

Laura looked a little shocked, then almost sad.

She took a deep breath, then said, "Well, I suppose I ought to have expected that." She shook her head once. "At any rate, between the dying leaving you with a weaker tether to your own body, and certain family ancestry playing a factor," she said with an eye at Lillian, "especially hers," Laura said in a way that almost made it an insult before continuing, "it would be difficult, if not impossible, to lock down your, ah, talent--"

"Curse," Lillian said dryly.

"--without a very real possibility of making things worse or otherwise driving you completely insane," Laura said. "Either way, you'd need Lana's help, or that of some other witch, and if it was Lana--"

_**\--then it'd have to occur on Halloween,**_ Lex filled in, following the line of reasoning. _**But besides the fact that Lana's not speaking to me right now, Halloween's almost a year away. I don't suppose you know of any other witches that I could talk to?**_

"I'm sorry," Laura said. "Witches these days are pretty few and far between."

"You're forgetting the last bit, love," Lewis prodded.

_**Last bit?** _

Laura sighed. "You may have noticed how quiet it is here," she said slowly, dissembling.

_**Yes...** _

"Well, this is a new wing to the hopsital," Laura began. "There aren't any resident ghosts here."

"And we were pretty circumspect in making our way here," Lewis added. "So we weren't followed or any such nonsense."

"But when you go back to the mansion..." she bit her lip. "It wasn't just _you_ that was... opened up to the other side."

Lex frowned, not getting it.

"The veil got thinned pretty badly there," Lewis supplied. "Even non-sensitives might start to notice things."

Lex sighed. _**Well, I don't see what that's got to do with me,**_ he said. _**I doubt I'm getting out of here anytime soon.**_

"They'll have to let you out, sooner or later," Lewis said with a shrug. "It's not like you're violent or anything."

" _ **No,**_ " Lex 'agreed', " _ **I just seem to hallucinate dead people for no apparent reason,**_ " he ended, his tone dripping sarcasm.

"Well, it's not like you feel compelled to do what the 'strange voices' you hear tell you to do--" Lewis began.

_**I had a hell of a time of it Saturday,**_ Lex admitted angrily, with no small amount of shame eating a hole in his gut. _**And I don't want to be put in that position again!**_

"Well, you'll get better at it with practice," Laura began.

_**Better at what?!**_ Lex said. _**I don't know what I'm doing!**_

"That's obvious," Lewis murmured, sounding amused.

_**I don't know how to not listen; I'm not even sure if I can! I'm not even sure what I should be trying to do.**_ Lex ended, shooting a _look_ at him. _**Can't you just tell me?**_ he asked Laura, practically a plea.

"I'm a witch, not a spiritual medium," she said, shaking her head. "I haven't the first idea how this sort of thing works, just rumors here and there. Nothing specific."

" _ **Then what good are you!?!**_ " Lex exclaimed angrily. _**You say you're sorry for something you couldn't do anything about, you talk and talk, but you can't undo it, and you-- you can't really do a damn thing!**_

"I can't even help my own daughter!" Laura said angrily, losing her temper. "I can't even get her to listen to me, let alone keep her safe! Don't you think I'd help you, to clean up this mess she's made of things, if I could?!" she ended, frustrated in the extreme.

"We don't like this any better than you do," Lewis said, sounding resolved. "We'll keep an ear out, and ask around discreetly -- the last thing you need is more attention right now than you're already getting," he said grimly, "-- and we'll help when and how we can, but we can't just wave a magic wand and fix your life for you."

"I'm a dead witch," Laura said. "I had to marshall my strength just to walk here today. I barely had the strength to stay together after the seance. Magic doesn't even work like that when you're alive," she said.

"Yeah," Lewis said. "Believe it or not, I've got a bit more oomph these days than she does, and that's sayin' something."

All the anger just left Lex in a rush. _**I thought...**_

"Hey, we're newbies to the afterlife, kiddo," Lewis said. "We don't got a lot of pull _or_ sway. We definitely don't know everything there is about everything... yet," he winked. "But Laura was able to help me stay here with her when I wanted to, and she found a way to keep me from only being stuck to the cemetery grounds, too." He shrugged. "We'll figure something out. It'll take a bit of time, but, well," he smiled, "you're the one who said you didn't think you'd be leaving soon, yeah?"

Lex sighed, and he sighed again as he realized that Laura had gotten up and stomped over to Lillian to go fight with his mother some more.

"C'mon," Lewis said, "it isn't that bad. It could be worse."

_**How?** _

"Well," Lewis pondered that one for a moment. "You could still be stuck in the mansion with all those other ghosts wailing away in your ears. Lillian scares 'em off a bit." He glanced up at the two women, then said lowly, "No offense kid, but she gives even me the willies."

_**So I'll be all right so long as mom stays with me?**_ Lex asked, brightening, feeling as though that might be the silver lining that made the whole thing worth it.

"Er... well..." Lewis said with reserve, scratching his head and looking a little... uncomfortable. "We can't all stay with you all the time. --Not like that, anyway," he amended. "And I don't think you'd want her around _all_ the time. You'll need to figure out how to be on your own without her. You shouldn't rely on... just one person," he ended.

Lex sighed. _**Sometimes it sucks being an adult.**_

Lewis chuckled. "No kidding." Then he moved away from the wall to sit in front of him.

Lex watched him carefully, wondering what he was up to.

"So," Lewis said, clapping his hands together. "I bet that straitjacket of yours is causing you no small discomfort, yeah?"

_**I suppose,**_ Lex half-admitted.

"Well, then let's see what we can do about that," Lewis said matter-of-factly.

Lex blinked at him. _**You can help me get it off?**_

"Hm?" said Lewis. "Oh. --No, not like that, not like you're thinking," he said. "I can't move physical stuff. Haven't quite got the knack; certainly haven't been around long enough to try," he said good-naturedly. "No, can't do that. _\--But_ ," he said, "I did find a guy at the cemetery who used do do magic tricks once upon a time. Loved Houdini and all that jazz. I had him explain it to me," Lewis said, "and I memorized it. So, now I can explain it to you," he offered.

Lex thought about that.

And then he smiled and said, _**What do I do first?**_

Lewis grinned.

~*~*~*~*~*~


	2. Sunday, November 3, 2002 -- (still) Belle Reeve, (still) Room 405

Clark walked into the padded room and came to an immediate halt, because Lex didn't look up.

Lex didn't even seem to realize he was there.

The door shut behind him rather loudly, and Clark almost winced at the noise.

Lex didn't even twitch.

He just... sat there slumped slightly against the wall and stared blankly off into space, his eyes half-shut.

 _Oh, no._ Was it really that bad? _No no nonono--_

\--Wait, no wait -- Chloe had said he was drugged, Lionel had drugged him, so... so it was probably the drugs. Right! It... it _had_ to be that, right?

"...Lex?" Clark said tentatively, starting to take a single step forward.

Lex blinked slowly.

"Lex?" Clark said a little louder.

Lex blinked and shifted his head, then looked up.

 _Ohhhh..._ God, Lex's eyes looked so _dulled_ and lifeless...

Clark bit his lip and approached slowly.

...and Lex seemed to slowly rouse, like he was waking up. His eyes grew a little sharper.

He tilted his head up at Clark, blinking.

"Lex? Clark asked, squatting down in front of him slowly. "Are you okay?"

Lex got a slight furrow between his eyebrows, not quite a frown.

"Lex? Can you hear me?"

"...I can hear you," Lex said, after a deeper frown and lightly clearing his throat.

Clark sighed in a little bit of relief and moved forward, sitting down at Lex's left, with his back against the wall -- sitting like Lex was.

"Sorry," Clark said. "Chloe said she heard you were drugged and... uh, you seemed kind of out of it. For a sec."

Actually, he still seemed a little out of it. Not exactly like he'd been all drunk before, because now he just seemed kinda fuzzy, and before he'd been really, completely... and oh geez, that had been totally Clark's fault, and, "I'm sorry I made you get drunk on Friday," Clark apologized.

Lex blinked at him once, then got a slow smirky smile.

"I probbly would have gotten drunk on my own, anyway," Lex offered up.

Clark looked down at his hands and felt just awful. Lex had just gotten tossed in here and was in.. in really bad shape, and here he was, trying to make _Clark_ feel better.

He looked up at Lex again, feeling pained. "Lex..."

Lex just sighed a little and his smile got a little less lopsided. "I'm all right, Clark, really."

Clar just nodded, feeling a lump in his throat.

"Um," Clark said, "do you want me to... maybe..." He really wasn't sure how to put this.

Lex frowned at him a little, then blinked and straightened slightly.

And then he turned his head to the side and stared at nothing.

"Oh, right!" Lex said.

A little shiver went down Clark's spine.

Then he remembered what Chloe had said about Lex hallucinating his dead mom that morning, and Lana saying about him being possessed by her mom on Thursday.

Right. So. There was probably someone there.

...right?

Lex turned back to Clark and smiled a little self-deprecatingly.

"Sorry," he said. "I'm still feeling a bit fuzzy from the drugs."

"Um, yeah," Clark said. "You do look kinda... wobbly. And tired." Really tired.

Lex gave him a smile that was and then wasn't a grimace. "I don't think I've actually gotten much sleep the last few days, to be honest, let alone any proper sort of rest," he admitted. "But what's making you uncomfortable is the straitjacket, right?"

Clark nodded. "I can--" he began, reaching for the back of it as Lex tugged his arms forward.

But then he stopped, startled, as Lex kept pulling his arms forward. And then he just lifted the top right up over his head and pulled it off completely.

Clark blinked as Lex took his time folding it up in his lap, his movements a bit dulled by fatigue and medication.

"Uh..." Clark said, trying to wrap his head around that one. "Why were you wearing it if it wasn't fastened up?"

"Because it was fastened up earlier, and after I got it off and no-one came in complaining, I thought that perhaps discretion would be the better part of valor," Lex explained. "I don't know whether someone saw before and just didn't care, or if no-one noticed, but if it was the latter... I didn't want anyone coming in and doing it up in the back again," Lex said reasonably, tossing the carefully folded package of cloth it onto the floor in front of him.

Clark blinked.

"Mmmmmm," Lex sighed happily as he stretched his arms up and out, looking like one of those sleepy sedated cats as every last inch of him seemed to spread out in the tension, then slowly loosen.

"Ahhh," the young billionaire finally ended, slumping back against the wall again. "Much better," he murmured, his head dipping down a little.

"...You couldn't sleep before," Clark said slowly, trying to figure it out.

"No," Lex said, "I suppose I couldn't." And then he got an odd look, like the thought hadn't occurred to him until Clark had asked.

"You think you could now?" Clark asked.

Lex frowned.

"Maybe," Lex said after awhile. "But I'd rather not right now."

Clark nodded. "Yeah, we need to get you out of here, first."

Lex smiled, but his shoulders sagged a bit. "Clark... I really do think I saw my dead mother this morning," he said quietly.

Clark shifted a little closer and turned towards Lex, putting his back to the door, because he didn't want anybody on the other side of the viewing window-wall to hear... if they could. "Yeah, I heard from Chloe," he said under his breath. "I finally got Lana to talk, too, kind of by accident. Apparently, uh," he grimaced. Did Lex really need to know this right now? He didn't want his best friend freaking out in the middle of an insane asylum.

Oh geez -- what if Lex thought he was crazy, like actually hallucinating? He'd been saying all sorts of stuff about ghosts before, but that was two days ago, and now...

"Laura Lang possessed me right after the ceremony with Lana and tried to talk to her," Lex said promptly, staring into Clark's eyes.

Clark winced.

"Sorry," Clark said, feeling like an ass. "I just..." and then he realized why Lex was looking at him like that. "--I wasn't going to _lie!_ " he said defensively, in a soft yelp.

Lex gave him a long look, then sighed and slumped a little more.

"I don't care what reasons you have, Clark. I don't even care if you think they're _good_ ones," he said in a low tone that brooked no argument. "If you know something about this, you tell me. Don't wait. And _don't_ leave anything out," he demanded quietly, his eyes boring into Clark's.

Clark gulped. "Okay," he said shakily, "but..." he winced again as the look started edging towards anger. "--It's just that that's about it. I don't really know anything else. She didn't really explain or say anything about..." He trailed off, then he blinked and mentally slapped himself in the forehead. "Well, okay -- she did say one thing."

Lex looked up at him expectantly.

"It's, uh, not much," Clark admitted, feeling like a jerk all over again for getting Lex's hopes up. "Just that you -- well, her-mom-as-you -- told her something that she'd only ever told me," Clark explained. "And I never repeated that conversation with anybody else." He took a breath. "So there's no way you could've known... well, whatever-it-was. Not unless... well," Clark shrugged and gave his best friend a sickly half-smile.

Lex stared at him.

"Clark, that's a _lot_ ," he said.

"Actually, no, it kind of isn't," Clark said. "Lana's really mad at the both of us right now. She's not gonna vouch for you actually being a ghost-whisperer or something. She thinks you were just messing with her."

Lex sighed and ran a slightly shaking hand over his head.

"I suppose I'll be staying here for quite awhile, then," Lex said slowly, like he was trying to get used to the idea.

"No, Lex--" Clark began, and then a thought hit him.

"...Clark?" Lex queried.

"Lana thinks that we were both playing a really awful prank on her," Clark said slowly. "Chloe brought it up yesterday too -- that whatever you did that got her so mad might have been a prank." He left out the part about Chloe lying and _really_ just thinking that Lex had maybe just gone crazy at the time that she'd told him that. "Maybe..." Clark frowned. "Maybe we can convince everybody that it was just some really bad joke-gone-wrong."

"You really think that anyone will actually believe that?" Lex said dubiously, staring at him.

"Dunno," Clark said, rubbing the back of his neck. "I mean, I guess I kinda screwed up a little trying to get in here," he said, "because I was treating it kind of seriously, like, I thought that you might not actually be hallucinating things that aren't there." He sighed. "If it was just a prank, it'd've been more believable if I'd come in completely freaking out and trying to convince everybody that it was just a stupid prank, and that nobody was supposed to get hurt, and to please let you out. I guess that pretending that I was waiting for you to call it off before stopping and dropping the act isn't as good," Clark admitted, "and us both standing up and walking out acting like nothing was wrong after that _might_ work, but if it gets you out, I'm not picky," Clark told him.

Lex blinked at him a few times, and his brows furrowed as he thought. It almost caused Clark physical pain, seeing how much effort it was taking Lex to think clearly just then.

"I think I'd rather stick to the truth, Clark," Lex said quietly. "If it's all the same to you."

Clark wondered if this was what being hit in the head by a two-by-four was supposed to feel like.

"Lex, that isn't a good idea--" he began.

"This isn't going away soon, Clark, if ever," Lex told him. "If I pretend I'm fine and they let me out, and then I have another episode... They'd toss me back in here so quickly..." He shook his head. "I'd never get out again if that happened," he said grimly. "And I... may need to stay away from the mansion for awhile until I figure a few things out." He looked up at Clark, trying to radiate surety, but all Clark felt were creepy-crawlies in his stomach. "It's really not that bad, Clark. It's quiet here. I'll be fine."

It was on the tip of Clark's tongue to ask, _What about LexCorp?_ but he managed not to blurt it out. Guilt-tripping Lex wouldn't fix anything, it'd only make things worse; adding more pressure and everything on top of everything else.

"Lex," he said, "you-- that _really_ isn't a good idea," he told him. "I mean--"

"And trying to pretend that I'm not different from anyone else is?" Lex said. "I'm _already_ different, Clark," he stated, running a hand over his head. "I tried hiding it, was ashamed of it, when I was a teenager. Trust me, owning it is better, much better. I'm not going back to that. I'm not doing that _ever_ again," he voiced fervently.

"But-- you won't be able to take it back!" Clark said, feeling a little freaked out. "Once people know--"

"If I try to hide it, Lionel will see it as a weakness," Lex pointed out quietly. "I won't let something like this become blackmail or leverage for someone else." He smiled. "It's the Art of War, Clark. You silently make your weaknesses into your strengths, and then you strangle your enemies with them."

"But--"

"Clark, I'm not hiding this," Lex said firmly. "Conspiracy, suspicion, paranoia, secrecy -- these probably all contributed to the worst of the reactions in those meteor freaks in town. I'm not putting myself through that."

Clark flinched.

"If I'm getting out of here," Lex said, "I'm doing it with the doctors' full-knowledge, regardless of what anyone else might have to say in the matter."

Oh god, that was so many different kinds of wrong. --For starters, Clark didn't like that 'if' one bit. And Clark felt more than a little uneasy about Lex being so... so _sure_ that this was the right thing, when... well, when Clark knew it just _wasn't_.

 _This is a really bad idea. He's not thinking clearly,_ Clark thought, worriedly. _He's all drugged up still, and..._ Lex was going to make a _big_ mistake. _Huge._

But Clark couldn't really think of anything else he could say right then that might change Lex's mind, let alone _help_ make things _better_.

So instead, Clark just settled for his kind-of last resort: solidarity in the face of idiot-doctors and everyone else.

"Well, I'm not leaving until you are," Clark said adamantly, crossing his arms. "I told Lionel that."

Lex blinked at him, and then his eyebrows went up a little belatedly when the implications of that finally hit.

"Clark--" Lex began to protest.

"It's fine," Clark said. "Mom'll take care of it." Then he gave Lex a considering look. "Or, y'know, read Lionel the riot act if he tries and acts up. One of the two." He shrugged.

Lex made a noise between a pained groan, a startled laugh, and a sort of horror-stricken whimper.

"Oh god," Lex said. "I'm not sure I want to see that." He paused. "Except maybe I do." He paused again. "But if I wanted to see it, then I'd probably have to be in the vicinity, and that would be close enough to get caught in the fallout." And by Lex's tone, it was obvious that he wanted no part of any fallout that might originate from a Mrs.-Kent-versus-Daddy-Luthor knock-down drag-out fight.

"It's okay," Clark said valiantly. "I'll protect you."

Lex looked startled. "Really?"

"Absolutely," Clark promised.

Lex gave him a look, then he started to get a small grin. "...But you make no promises for my father."

"Nope!"

The corners of Lex's mouth kept twitching upward, even though he kept trying to even them out.

Clark grinned.

After awhile Lex bit his lip, then finally gave up and laughed a little, helplessly, into Clark's shoulder.

...and then he stayed there.

"Lex?" Clark asked, craning his neck to look down at him.

Lex looked a little dazed, his eyelids drooping.

"So warm..." Lex said softly, curling into him a little, and Clark realized in a flash the last time he'd heard Lex say that -- _just like that_ , had been--!

Clark wrapped his arms around Lex and pulled him in close, then gasped in shock.

"Lex! You-- you're _cold!_ " Clark said, eyes widening. _And if even **I** can tell..._

 _Oh god._ "--Hey!" Clark shouted over his shoulder, pulling Lex into his lap and cradling him, trying to wrap himself around him as much as alienly possible. "Hey! He's-- he's _freezing!_ We-- we need blankets, or something!" he yelled before turning back to Lex, rubbing his arms, his back, trying desperately to warm him up.

Lex practically _melted_ into Clark, murmuring something incomprehensible, something about Clark being a sunlight, or his sunlight, or something.

And _then_ Lex started shivering.

 _Oh no._ If Lex hadn't been shivering before, and was only starting to _now_ , now that he'd finally begun to warm up...

"Oh, man," Clark said quietly. _This isn't good. How cold **was** he?_ "--Lex, just hang on, okay?"

But Lex didn't really seem to mind one bit.

A burly male nurse burst in with several blankets. Clark reached out and grabbed one, started to wrap Lex up in it, but got a feeble fight out of Lex when the blanket started getting between him and Lex.

"Okay, geez, hold on," Clark said, wrapping the blanket around the both of them, carefully, and then another. "Lex, do you know why you're so cold?" he tried, hoping Lex knew something that he didn't, because he was still shivering, except it was more like trembling...

Lex murmured something incoherent.

"Lex, come on." Clark wracked his brain.

Then he tried, "Lex, what does sunlight have to do with... with the last couple of days?"

And Lex, at least a _little_ warmer now, and less-coherent -- _but he should get better once he's... better,_ Clark thought, remembering how he'd seemed marginally less out-of-it on the couch than in the wine cellar -- was perfectly willing to ramble on about how Clark was warm and just like sunlight everything was safe and comfortable and fine and when he was around the whispers went away...

Clark blinked as Lex kept getting less and less coherent, and more off topic, with words fewer and farther-between, and focused on what he'd said right at the start.

Then he looked up at the looming nurse and said, "Where's the nearest south-facing room with a really big window?"

He was out the door and down the hallway almost before the man had finished the deep breath he took in after he finished speaking. Lex seemed to mind the bridal carry about as much as he had the last time -- which was to say, he seemed to be actively enjoying it, if the beautific smile across his face was any... er...

Well, Lex had been really drunk before, and was still drugged now, right? So...

...Yeah, Lex not being mad at being manhandled and carried around like a girl all over the place was totally fine with Clark, actually, and he was really hoping that Lex didn't change his mind about that anytime soon. Like, ever. Ever would be good for him. It was kind of embarrassing enough as it was, or at least had the potential for it. For instance, if Chloe had been there and had a camera...

And _that_ was _still_ a lot nicer and easier to think about than how Lionel had still been in the hallway with a bunch of those doctors. Clark didn't like the idea of their having been stared at that whole time. ...At least Lionel was blind, though. If Lionel had been watching him...

Clark stifled a shiver of his own.

~*~*~*~*~*~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I know that's not actually a direct quote from The Art of War, but it does encompass several of the early tenets.
> 
> And, to explain the shivering thing: if you're cold, your skin gets goosebumps (...not as helpful now that humans no longer have enough 'fur' to fluff up and trap body heat better). If you get colder, your body begin to shiver to try and produce more heat. The colder you get, the more and harder your shivering... until you get so cold that you stop shivering. When you are constantly shivering due to cold, this is called [hypothermia](http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/hypothermia/DS00333/DSECTION=symptoms). When you get colder and [finally stop shivering, that's still hypothermia](), and that isn't a good thing...
> 
> ...The more you know! ;)


	3. Sunday, November 3, 2002 -- Belle Reeve, Common Activity Room

~*~*~*~*~*~

Soon enough, Clark had safely ensconced himself and Lex in a window seat, in the middle of a large beam of sunlight streaming down from the mostly-clear sky on that cool November afternoon.

The sunlight would more than make up for the cold of the glass, but he was still careful to have Lex situated in his lap in such a way that he wasn't touching the glass, or too close to it. He slowly unwound the blankets around them so that they wrapped around he and Lex from behind, but didn't block the sunlight -- a half-cocoon of trapped warmth.

Lex seemed to be a little too busy melting up against his chest to appreciate any of what Clark was doing, but that was okay. ...The not-appreciating, that was, not the 'melting.' _If he was **actually** melting I'd be freaking out,_ Clark thought for a second, but then shook it away, because that was sort of nightmarish, and he was probably gonna have bad dreams about Lex ignoring him and only talking with people Clark couldn't see for days as it was.

"Lex?" he queried, gently drawing an arm up around his friend's shoulder. He would've asked, _Are you okay?_ but he knew Lex both was and wasn't. --Lex was obviously happy from the small smile that hadn't left his face and the way he seemed totally relaxed now, but he still felt really cold and was still shivering a little bit. So instead, Clark asked, "Is this better?"

Lex didn't respond.

What he _did_ do was keep breathing evenly, and deeply, with his eyes closed.

"Oh," Clark said quietly.

And then he began to smile a little himself.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Lex slowly blinked his eyes open, feeling warm.

"Mmmm," he sighed with a smile, as he realized that he was sitting in someone's lap -- a very warm someone -- and felt... relaxed. He felt very comfortable and safe and loved.

Oh, he _liked_ this feeling. Curled up in a loveseat by the window, hm, maybe he could do this more often with...?

Lex looked up, and the smile slipped off of his face.

Guilt and shame trickled in instead, as whatever childlike thoughts he'd had upon half-waking finally and fully dispersed.

He was practically **on** him, sideways, fully _lounging_ up against _Clark's chest_ , and Clark had him cradled in his arms like was some... some...

Even if Lex had woken up in a lover's arms, a woman's arms, like this, he would have to be appalled at himself. _But to wake up the arms of a fifteen-year-old boy, like a teenager with a crush? Like... like the **Lana Lang** to Clark's **Whitney?!**_

Though it shouldn't have surprised him that Clark was staying in such close proximity -- to keep an eye on him, being worried about him -- and being so... affectionate... with his person. Sometimes, he got the feeling that Clark considered him family, and that Lex somehow, in some strange and unforseen manner, had been adopted himself. _Kent family adoption,_ he mused to himself with a wince, _where the kid picks their family members, not the other way around._ But even if they _were_ family... were _brothers_... _I would be the elder sibling, and should be acting accordingly,_ and Lex was very certain that that did not involve being comforted by the _younger_ brother like this, _ever_. Their roles should be reversed.

 _A hug between friends, or even family, is one thing, but this..._ This was something entirely different, and completely unacceptable, both socially and... otherwise.

Yes, he was _thoroughly_ disgusted with himself, and he tucked his chin back down and imperceptibly curled in on himself a little as he thought it -- he didn't quite have that luxury, and he shouldn't have this one.

Worse -- _he didn't want to move_. He knew he _should_ \-- god, he knew it! -- but Clark was asleep, and if Lex moved he might wake him, and... that was a flimsy excuse, and he knew better.

But he was _warm_ again like he hadn't felt since... since _Thursday_ , actually, and -- jesus, did that have something to do with all the ghosts? Paranormal phenomena were usually accompanied by a local drop in temperature, as though a manifestation or crossing of some sort took the energy right out of the air itself, didn't it?

That _was_ the prevalent theory in the field of parapsychology, anyway, as far as he was aware...

...Damnit, and those odd unspecifiable, unvoicable _feelings_ he'd had Friday night -- _before_ the second ceremony -- had entirely fled in Clark's presence, hadn't they? ...At least, they had once he'd spent enough time in close proximity to Clark. So he had a perfectly logical reason to continue to stay _right_ where he was...

...especially since he had a feeling that his mother and the Lang patriarch and ex-matriarch were no longer nearby to serve as a help in such a manner. Vaguely recalling his day Saturday, he had a feeling that finding a sure-fire way to dispel or otherwise forcibly remove the majority of ghosts from his vicinity was a matter that he should pursue post-haste. In the meantime, sticking to tried-and-true methods -- such as close-proximity to Clark -- would be essential to his continued physical and mental well-being.

...Maybe he'd even be able to convince Clark of this, as well.

He shifted slightly in place uneasily, despite the fact that it wasn't as though sharing the thought would be _lying_...

"Lex? You awake?"

Lex blinked.

He looked up again.

Clark had his eyes open and was looking right back.

"Ah..." murmured Lex. "Did I... wake you?"

"No, said Clark, sounding as awake as he had when he'd asked Lex if he was -- which was to say, _very_.

"Oh," said Lex, feeling a little foolish. _I thought..._ "You had your eyes closed," he pointed out quietly.

"Sorry," Clark said. "I was paying attention, I swear," he said, sounding a little defensive, maybe a little petulant, as though Clark's _allowance_ and perceptiveness was the problem here.

_Which is it not._

"Mm," Lex said noncommitally. "I take it we're still in Belle Reeve?" _Since I don't recognize the view out the window, and the commotion behind me doesn't sound particularly sane._ Lex hadn't chanced more than a glance at a reflection in the windowpane earlier. Thoughts of being stuck in a mental hospital for any indeterminate period were... disturbing, let alone that there were individuals suffering from meteor-rock psychosis being housed in this one. _...Actually, that may work for me, more than against me._

"Yeah," said Clark. "It's about 5 o'clock now," he offered, which explained the sun's progression in the sky. "I wonder what's taking my mom so long."

"Well, when did you tell her to come and pick you up?" Lex asked reasonably.

Clark was quiet.

"...Clark, your parents _do_ actually know that you're _here_ , don't they?" Lex asked, about a split-second before he remembered that the family only _had_ the one truck. _Oh, hell._ "Please tell me that they know you're here and can _get_ here!" Lex didn't want to contemplate what might happen if Clark ended up stranded here with him. An insane asylum was no place for a sane individual, let alone _Clark_ , who acted paranoid about the mos random of things at times, and who was different enough that... a psychologist or two might find him _interesting_ enough to want to...

Lex shuddered.

"We need to find a phone," he told Clark, as he tried and failed to find a way to gracefully extricate himself from Clark's lap. Instead, he had to settle for turning towards Clark, putting his hands on his friend's shoulders, and getting one leg up and over him to straddle Clark's legs in a kneeling posture, an action that would be immediately prior to pushing himself up from the window 'ledge' and upright, standing on his own.

...However, that first sequence of movements to a kneeling posture nearly had him knocking foreheads with Clark and his hands clenched on Clark's shoulders as he sat back down abruptly, swaying first sideways, then backwards.

"I'm all right," Lex said dizzily as Clark immediately wrapped a supporting arm around his waist and then put a palm to his head. "Really."

"Uh huh," Clark said suspiciously, lowering his hand. "Well, you're not as cold as you were before," Lex was informed. "But..." And then Lex got stared at a bit. It was mildly disconcerting, especially since it reminded him of Mrs. Kent right before she--

"When was the last time you ate?"

\--said something a little like that, only she usually did it wih a great deal more tact.

" _Did_ you have breakfast this morning?" Clark continued with a frown that boded ill if the answer was 'no', even more so because the person in question thought he already knew the answer.

Lex contemplated lying for all of two seconds before he realized that he was worrying about getting chewed out by a teenager for not eating properly when he was having ghost problems and _trying to deal with being continually haunted, for god's sake, get a grip, Luthor! Priorities!_

"No, I didn't have breakfast, this morning," Lex admitted truthfully.

Clark sighed gustily. "And neither of us have had lunch yet today, and you didn't eat dinner on Friday," he added with a grimace, rubbing the back of his neck. "I hope you ate more Saturday to make up for that."

That was a rhetorical question. He didn't have to answer that.

"...You _did_ eat more Saturday, right?"

_Aw, damnit._

"I had tea."

Clark blinked. "What, really?" he said, and the muscles in his shoulders relaxed a little bit under Lex's hands.

Lex nodded, not entirely sure why _tea_ made everything all right, but...

"Huh," said Clark. "I didn't know you knew how to cook, let alone make shortbread cakes or scones or stuff. I heard from Chloe how you chased out your staff and--" Clark suddenly glowered at him. "...you just meant the drink, didn't you," Clark ended with darkening tones.

 _...Oh. I --drat._ "Yes."

"Lex!"

"I had dinner Thursday!" Lex protested.

"What?" Clark said. "--Wait. You didn't eat at all on Friday either?"

It was Lex's turn to frown. "Of course I did."

"You didn't have dinner."

"I had wine."

"That's a drink; that hardly counts," Clark said, resituating the blankets around Lex's shoulders, then wrapping both his arms around Lex's waist like he thought Lex was going to try and escape on him. "What else did you eat?"

"I..."

Lex drew a blank.

"Lex?"

Feeling a little frantic for no apparent reason, Lex closed his eyes and tried to think through his day. _I woke up. I went to the library. I went to the Talon. Lana... I didn't get to order anything. Then Chloe... but I didn't drink that, either, and that was only water._ He'd gone to work -- to the factory, his factory -- but been too busy at work to do anything else. The stares he'd gotten at his attire had had him heading home for a shower and a change of clothing. _I stopped in at the kitchen to let them know I was in and ask after the possibility of a meal,_ because he'd be spending too much time in his delayed morning toilette and his drive to stop somewhere else for a meal before heading back to LexCorp. _And then I... I..._

"Lex?"

_...I, I did **something** , and then I--_

"I'm missing time Friday afternoon," Lex said slowly, his eyes still closed. "I was at the mansion to get changed, but I was going to have lunch there. I... think I ate something then. Before I changed. ...I must have," he ended quietly, pressing the heel of his palm against his forehead, right between his eyes.

He opened his eyes to see a slightly determined look on Clark's face.

"Clark?"

"Chloe talked with some of your staff on Saturday," Clark told him. "Somebody almost went into the library accidentally, not realizing they shouldn't, until somebody else stopped them. They caught a glance and said that the place didn't look wrecked. It was after you left that morning, but before you came back that afternoon," Clark said. Then he took a deep breath and added, "Chloe thought that you must've done it yourself when you came back, because--"

Lex felt the blood drain from his face.

"I... _\--I??_ " he stammered. _I did that?! ...Oh **no** \--!_ he realized, suddenly feeling sick. "Clark, are you telling me that..." he swallowed hard, "...that I accused my own staff of something that... that _I_..."

"No!" Clark exclaimed quickly. "I mean, you don't really remember it, right? Like Thursday night!" he said. "Maybe... _probably_ you got possessed again," he rattled off brazenly, but it wasn't all that soothing a thought, considering.

"But why would Mrs. Lang..." Lex couldn't conceive of it. Surely, it would take longer than five minutes to do that much damage, and hadn't she said that she'd had trouble even holding herself together, afterwards?

"Maybe it was someone else?" Clark suggested. "Somebody who was mad about the ceremony, or about not getting to speak with Lana?"

"Mr. Lang seemed a little more carefree than that," Lex said, frowning. _And from the sounds of things, he's not all that powerful on his own, either._ Lewis most likely **couldn't** have possessed him, not on his own, and Laura had been drained. But who would that leave?

"How do you know Lana's dad?" Clark asked. "--Wait, you've _talked_ with him?"

Lex nodded absently. "He was there in the room with us when--" He looked up at Clark and frowned. "You heard me talk with him."

"I heard you talk with _someone_ ," Clark said. " _I_ couldn't see or hear anything besides you."

"I... you... didn't?" _What?_

And then Lex realized in slight horror that--

"Oh dear god, this must be what doublethink feels like," Lex said distantly, because how else could he think that Lionel could hear his mother, and Clark hear and see Lewis, but still think that people wouldn't believe him that he was seeing and hearing ghosts, and want to lock him away? "I'm not thinking clearly."

"Lex," Clark said patiently. "You haven't eaten for three days, you were drugged, _and_ you were cold as ice earlier. _Colder._ " He pulled Lex forward in a loose hold that was almost a hug. "I'd be more worried if you seemed like you _weren't_ having trouble thinking clearly."

Lex sighed. "Well, when you put it like that..."

"We're gonna get you something to eat, okay?" Clark said. "It'll help you get the drugs out of your system. You'll feel better after."

"No, we call your parents first," Lex demanded adamantly.

"Lex--"

"Phone call, food, and getting out of here," Lex said, "in that order."

"Fine, whatever," Clark said, rolling his eyes. "But I bet once mom's here that the second one comes before the first. She can take care of both."

Lex gave him a sharp look, then yelped as Clark gathered him up in his arms and stood up. "Clark!"

"Yes?" Clark said innocently.

Lex bit his tongue on the _put me down!_ and instead said, "I am perfectly capable of walking!" And yet Clark was already walking for him, carting him away from the window. "Clark!"

"You're barefooted," Clark pointed out. "No shoes or socks. You'll catch a chill again."

"You could lend me your shoes," Lex said darkly, crossing his arms. So what if the bridal carry was comfortable -- Clark still shouldn't be doing it!

"They're too big," Clark said happily.

And that was when Lex realized, "You _like_ carrying me around!"

...Clark suddenly developed a sudden and very suspicious interest in looking at anything-that-wasn't-Lex-Luthor.

"Clark, I'm not an invalid," he said, frowning up at him. "I'm fine! Just--"

"--God, you complain worse than _dad,_ " Clark said in a very teenaged tone. "I bet you'll be better once you've eaten something, like him, too."

Lex's mouth dropped open.

...Lex really wasn't certain what was worse: being compared to Jonathan Kent -- and a grouchy one at that! -- or the idea that Clark might have hauled around _Mr. Kent_ in a bridal carry before, possibly more than once, and when Lex tried to visualize that... _Out, out, get it out_.

"Oh, hey there, there's a guard!" Clark said cheerfully, obviously trying to change the subject and distract him. "Hello, security guard, --nurse, --person."

"Nurse," said the male nurse, looking them over with no small amusement.

"Hi!" grinned Clark, holding a frustrated, sulky -- _only a little!_ \-- Luthor. "We've kinda been up here awhile, and we need to go get something to eat. Which way is the cafeteria? I mean," Clark tried again, frowning to himself, "you have a lot of people living here, so I guess I _assume_ you have to have a cafeteria or something, but maybe you call it something else--"

"There's a cafeteria on the second floor," the nurse said, putting Clark out of his misery.

"Please stop channeling Chloe on a sugar rush," Lex muttered under his breath.

"It's through here," the nurse added, pointing a thumb behind him.

"Awesome, thanks," Clark said. "So, if you could just move aside... a little bit..." Clark said, peering around the nurse's shoulder to the main doors to the outside access, and the elevator beyond.

"No," said the nurse, staying right where he was.

"No?" said Clark, straightening.

"Patients have their meals brought to them," the burly male nurse explained. "Only visitors and staff can leave and go there direct."

"Oh," said Clark.

Then he grinned.

"Okay," Clark said, and he set Lex down -- finally!

\--and oh dear god, the floor really _was_ freezing! Lex hated, hated, _hated_ tile floors, almost as much as stone ones. Brr!

"Okay," Clark said again, and then he _pulled off his visitor's badge and attached it to the button on Lex's pocket -- what the hell--??_

And then he crossed his arms, stood there, and looked at Lex expectantly.

Lex stared down at the badge and fingered it gingerly. He was somewhat glad that they hadn't forced him into crazy-wear -- _yet_ \-- but his shirt and pants were rumpled as hell by this point and he wasn't even wearing any socks.

He looked up at Clark again, still wondering _what the hell--_

"So, I'll wait here--" Clark began.

"He's a patient; he stays here," the nurse cut in.

"No, he isn't," Clark said.

"Yes, he is."

"No, he isn't."

"This isn't my badge," Lex said slowly.

"Right; he lost his," Clark said immediately, giving Lex a quick _shut up!_ glance. Lex frowned back.

"Oh, really?" the guard said, humoring Clark. "Where are his socks and shoes then?" the man asked, crossing his arms.

"I stole 'em; I'm not giving them back," Clark deadpanned, crossing his arms right back.

The nurse looked unamused.

There was a long stare-off.

"...He's not a patient," Lex put out there, slightly worried.

"I'm well-aware," the nurse said with bone-dry humor as an aside, and a subtext of _though maybe he should be_.

Lex winced.

There was more staring.

Lex took off the badge and then firmly fastened it back to Clark's shirt pocket, which involved a little complaining and a lot of batting Clark's hands aside when Clark tried to stop him.

And then Clark sighed deeply and said like it was a grievance, "You're _impossible_."

 _Yes, Clark,_ Lex thought darkly. _When it comes to you trying to end up committed in an insane asylum for me while I go free, yes, **I am impossible**._ "Just go make your phone call and get us some food," Lex said under his breath, with a glare to underscore the severity of his displeasure with his young friend.

"Fine," Clark said, all teenaged-'compliance' once again. "But I'm gonna be bringing back a lot of food, okay?" he informed the guard. "He hasn't eaten practically _anything_ in _three days_."

Lex's mind stuttered to a halt. "'A lot'?" he asked, suddenly feeling worried. "Clark, how much is 'a l--'"

But Clark was already out the door.

"I am in so much trouble, aren't I?" Lex murmured out loud.

"Yep," said the nurse. "Off-hours, you're lucky if you can get the kitchen staff to even make you a PBJ sandwich."

Lex pondered that for a moment.

"Oh god," he said. "Clark's going to take over your kitchen."

The nurse frowned at him.

"His mother knows how to cook," Lex explained slowly, as the true horror of the situation began to hit, "but I'm not sure he does."

"I doubt that'll be a problem," the nurse said benignly, with a smile. "He couldn't even get you past me."

"I've seen Clark run headfirst into taking on meteor freaks," Lex said faintly. "...and he usually wins. He probably could've just tackled you and gotten us both through the door, but he didn't. He was being polite."

Lex missed the long stare he got, as he turned and wandered back over to the windowseat to wait for Clark, pulling the blankets closer around him as he pondered what in the hell he was going to do about Clark, and his ghost problem, and how in the world this was his life.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Lex frowned around the room again, and felt a little nervous as the sun dipped a little lower in the sky. Night was coming.

He was also of various undetermined and mixed feelings about the wide berth he was getting from the various and assorted crazies milling about the room. They'd given him and Clark some privacy earlier -- they must have, otherwise, how would he have been able to sleep so peacefully? -- but they'd started to enroach upon what he considered his territory a great deal after he'd resettled himself at the window.

...up until he'd leveled a truly deadly glare at one of the noisier ones as he thought angrily, _**stupid fucking lunatic, get out of my space!!**_

The jibbering man had yelped like something had _bit_ him and run away _screaming his head off_.

Lex had blinked.

The rest of the room had noticed.

And then he had gotten his _very_ wide berth.

Lex glanced out the window again, and wondered if he should be worried that neither his mother nor the Langs had reappeared. They had said that he should be alone here... but that had been in the new wing. This was a part of the old building, and Lex wondered if he might've picked up a straggler or two accidentally without realizing it. The sunlight might seem to suppress the ghosts... _somewhat_... but Clark wasn't the sun. Was it possible that close proximity to Clark didn't drive the ghosts away, but only Lex's ability to perceive them properly?

...But then, he'd been able to talk with Lewis while Clark was nearby. It was only after he'd ended up snuggled in Clark's arms -- touching him -- that things had gotten a little fuzzy, like last time. He'd no idea whether they'd walked out, those three ghosts, to head back to the cemetery, or whether...

There was a clatter, and Lex turned his head towards the door.

The nurse let in Clark, who was weighed down with a filled-to-overflowing tray of food.

Lex balked, even as Clark brought it over to an unoccupied couch and set it down on his lap, waving Lex over.

At Clark's exasperated look, and upon realizing that Clark would probably just come over and drag -- or carry -- him back if Lex waited too long, he grumbled to himself and made the trek under his own power.

Clark snuggled right up to his side onc Lex sat down. At Lex's puzzled look, Clark said, "You said I'm your sunlight-substitute, right? You got better... well, relaxed a bit, on Friday after I sort of... held you for awhile, right? And today, too."

"That... may have more to do with the temperature, Clark," Lex said slowly.

"Well, it has to do with _something_ ," Clark said, handing Lex what looked like a PBJ sandwich. "But the room you were in here wasn't cold," he added, grabbing a sandwich for himself. "Not that cold, anyway. I think that whatever's happening with the ghosts, or whatever, is making _you_ cold," Clark put out there, then took a bite of his own sandwich.

_Oh, no. Clark's perceptiveness is not the problem here. Not in the least._

"The room wasn't cold?" Lex queried. That seemed a bit odd. He'd thought...

"No," said Clark. "Now eat."

Lex glanced with some trepidation at the stack of sandwiches. "You weren't gone terribly long. How did the phone call go?"

"Less questions, more eating," Clark said, eyeing Lex.

 _Right,_ thought Lex. _Well, at least it looks like all those aren't just for me,_ which was a relief. _Clark must've decided to eat up here with me rather than downstairs on his own,_ which was nice of him, considering.

"Sorry about it being just sandwiches and soup and apple juice and stuff," Clark offered. "I couldn't get them to let me use the stove. Or the oven." He frowned.

Lex gave the large bowls of soup a critical eye and wondered how difficult it was to reheat soup in a microwave. It was probably safe, right? _After all, if the sandwiches turned out all right..._ and they seemed to have done...

And then Lex blinked as he watched Clark hold his half-eaten sandwich in one hand, pick up the large bowl in the other, and tip it upwards, drinking directly from it like a Japanese udon with only broth remaining.

...Well, it did look to be largely just tomato and nothing else. The comparison held.

"Mm!" Clark smacked his lips heartily. "Not bad!" he congratulated his own 'cooking'.

"No spoons?" Lex asked, quiet as an echo.

"No, sorry," Clark apologized immediately, contrite. "They wouldn't let me bring utensils.

"Of course not," Lex sighed, staring down at his sandwich.

"Leeeeeex..." Clark complained, looking down at said sandwich, apparently offensive because it was still _out_ in his hands and not _in_ in his stomach already.

Lex stifled a grimace and took another bite, then reached for a tall plastic cup of lukewarm apple juice.

"Those are hot chocolate," Clark pointed out to two more opaque containers that were steaming slightly. "And here," he pulled something from his pocket and thrust it at Lex.

Lex blinked, set down the cup, and took the... socks?... from Clark.

Clean, dry socks. Huh.

"Sorry I couldn't get yours," Clark said after swallowing a mouthful of sandwich. "The intake people said that you didn't have socks or shoes on when Lionel's goons brought you in, already in a straitjacket," Clark frowned. "I guess they stripped 'em off you earlier. But I talked to one of the guys coming off-shift, and they had extra in a gym bag, and didn't mind trading a sandwich for 'em."

Lex daintily finished his sandwich, cleaned off his fingers with a napkin just to be safe, and then unrolled the socks and pulled them on. He wiggled his toes a little and sighed.

He had never realized quite how much he loved socks before today.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Clark's parents still hadn't arrived yet, and Clark wouldn't talk about the phone call, but they had to talk about _something_ as they waited.

So, naturally, this led back to talking about what had happened to Lex, instead of anything of any real significance about Clark, and by the time the sun was sinking below the horizon, Lex was feeling wrung out, and Clark didn't seem to be anywhere _close_ to done with him.

"Look, it seems simple to me," Clark said. "You weren't in control, Lana's mom was. We'll just figure out how to stop that sort of thing, so you won't go getting possessed anymore, and everything will be okay."

Lex shook his head. "Clark, it... what happened Friday afternoon wasn't even really the same as the night before," he tried to explain, feeling frustrated. "I couldn't remember anything from after the ceremony stopped. This.. this memory... that _isn't there_... feels more like... like..." _like it's **there** but just out of **reach** ,_ he thought, unconsciously flexing his fingers in small grabbing motions as he blindly stared down at his hands. "I _should_ be able to remember it." _So why can't I?_

"Well, did you _want_ to make Lana mad? Or wreck the place?"

"No!" _Of course not!_

"Then it's not your fault. It wasn't you," Clark said firmly, staring straight into his eyes.

"Yes, I understand that, Clark," he said tiredly, ghosting a hand over his head, "but I don't think that this 'possession' issue is the only problem I have to deal with here." He grimaced. "Half of the problem Saturday was that I felt as though I had to listen, almost compelled to do so, and they wouldn't leave me alone. I wasn't acting completely under my own agency."

"Okay, so there's possession and, what, these ghosts talking at you too much and not shutting up? And this not-exactly-a-possession possession-thing. So we'll take things one at a time," Clark said.

Lex sighed grumpily, and conceded the point with a wave of his hand. He collapsed back into the ancient discolored couch cushions and tried not to think about how he'd have to burn his clothes later, because god knew what people had done on this thing, or otherwise smeared or spilled on it over the years.

"So, these chatty ghosts who mess with your head -- will earplugs help?" Clark started.

"No," said Lex, "it's more like they just sound like I'm hearing them with my ears, when in actuality I'm 'hearing' them in my head." When Clark frowned, he added, "I tried covering my ears, yelling over them to drown them out, outrunning them, hiding from them, anything I could think of -- nothing. It didn't block any of the voices out the slightest bit--"

"Clark!" they heard, and both turned to look over the couch.

"Hey, mom," Clark said, sounding wholly unconcerned. Lex had a feeling that this had to do somewhat with the copious amounts of space that everyone was giving them in this room. Most of the least-sane inmates that Lex had seen had seemed to have cleared out completely under their own willingness to leave by this point, and somehow Lex doubted that one simple glare had really been sufficient to push them all that last step forward... or away, though if it was...

If only dealing with ghosts was that simple.

Clark got up and ducked around the couch, and got a hug from a worried Martha Kent almost immediately. Lex rose more slowly, and hung back, feeling like the odd duck out.

"Clark, what were you thinking?" she exclaimed, pulling away a bit.

"Lex isn't crazy, mom," Clark began.

"Son--" Jonathan started belligerently, but he cut off at the glare Clark leveled at him.

" _You_ don't know what _you're_ talking about, dad," Clark said in a dangerous tone.

Lex felt his eyes go wide.

And then he heard a snicker behind him.

He turned slowly.

"Hey, Clark," the teenaged boy said, and it took a moment for Lex to place him.

"Eric," Clark acknowledged blandly, almost warily.

"So, your parents are here to bail you out, huh, Clark?" Eric Summers said, eyeing the Kents, before settling his gaze on Lex, and adpoting a grin. "Bet your dad's just like mine," he said with a gleam in his eye. "Left you here to rot."

"I'm here for Lex," Clark said, warning in his tone.

"Sure you are," Eric said, looking him over. "But you both belong here, with the rest of us, you know that, right?" he said with a smirk, leaning in conspiratorilly.

He saw the elder Kents go rigid. Clark just stood there and stared Eric down.

"I'm not the one who was running around hurting people, Eric," he said quietly.

"You hurt _me_ ," Eric said, thumping his palms against his chest, "isn't that enough? It only takes one, right?" he said, backing off a step, all-smiles. "And I bet I'm not the only one," he continued. "I hear the rumors. People _die_ around you, Clark; why is that, do you think?" he said, cocking his head, still smiling.

Lex stilled.

Clark glowered, starting to get angry.

Lex reached out a hand and, before he knew what he was doing, was holding Clark's arm, holding him back.

"Clark, don't..." he said quietly to him, urgently, not even really knowing what he was asking, just that he... stop, before he did... something.

Clark stopped.

Eric grinned. Lex didn't like the look of it.

"Let's go," Lex heard Martha say, and he stifled a sigh and dropped his hold on Clark.

"Lex," he heard, and looked up again at Martha's exasperated tone.

"...Yes?" Lex said in confusion.

"Let's go," Martha repeated, and Lex felt a shiver run through him.

He glanced over at Jonathan, who had shot an unhappy look over at Martha, but _he wasn't arguing, why wasn't he arguing?_

Lex glanced at a smiling Clark, a serious-looking Martha, and a resigned-looking Jonathan. He glanced over at the male nurse guarding the door, who glanced at the three of them, and then made the slightest tilt of his head, as though he would allow Lex to follow them through.

Lex felt a little... odd, as he took a single step forward.

"You know why he should be in here, don't you?" Lex heard behind him.

He stopped.

He had a horrible feeling as he stopped.

"I mean, you're one of us, right? You should know."

...maybe. Maybe it wasn't really Summers. Maybe it was a ghost. A lying one, that just happened to sound like...

Lex slowly clenched his fists.

He had personal agency, he didn't have to let this--

"You want to know, right?" he heard, closer behind him, and he couldn't look up at Clark, couldn't lift his gaze up from the floor. Socks on his feet. "You ought to know. You _deserve_ to, right?"

Lex was staring at the floor, because he couldn't look anyplace else. Nothing else was safe. Orpheus and Eurydice -- he couldn't look back, because then every whispered doubt would become irrevocably and irreversably _real_ and all would be lost, he'd never see _Clark_ again, and he couldn't look up, because if he looked at Clark's expression...

It was dark as night outside now, wasn't it? And he didn't really need to see. Did he?

He closed his eyes, and took a breath.

He closed his ears, and took one step forward. It was the hardest thing he'd ever done.

Then there were hands on him and he was jerked forward, pulled, almost lost his footing--

And he was being held by Clark again and he was shaking, Clark was shivering--

There were screams behind him, a stream of neverending curses, voice full of hatred and vitriol and promising violence, nearly incoherent in rage, _give it back to me, it's mine, you stole it--!_

Clark was shivering, and he was shaking too, and the doors were slamming closed behind them, as the guard-nurse did his job, and other nurses converged on the raving madman, raging lunatic, and _Lex had nearly listened to that thing_.

_Oh god, what did I almost do?_

"Let's go," Martha said in a cold, ringing, authoritative tone -- the third time, the final time -- and she turned on her heel and walked away, expecting to be obeyed.

From the frowns of the other nurses as the three of them trailed behind her, Lex realized that he wasn't supposed to have accompanied the Kents out. It hadn't been expected.

And Lex knew in that moment that the only reason Martha had brought him out, was _bringing_ him out of that _hell_ was because that boy knew something important, something dangerous to Clark that she hadn't wanted him to hear. He knew that because of this, she would move heaven and earth to make certain that Lex was discharged from Belle Reeve, that Lex never heard it, would never hear it, that _no-one_ would -- that that would become his one and only chance to have ever known, now firmly in the past.

And yet he knew that he could not be anything but grateful for it.

_I was out of my mind to even contemplate staying._

~*~*~*~*~*~


	4. Sunday, November 3, 2002 -- Belle Reeve, Main Floor

~*~*~*~*~*~

"And sign here, and here," the nurse at the desk indicated, and he did so.

"All right, that's it," the nurse said, tidying up the paperwork, and Lex let out a long, slow breath and put the pen down.

For some reason, Clark was giving the nurse a long stare that bordered on beinn a glare, except for the level of confusion involved. Was there some reason he seemed to be thrown by the woman being _helpful?_ She did seem a little overly flirty, with a _very_ dry wit, but that was hardly a crime...

"Come on, now," Martha said in a matronly manner, holding out a hand and gesturing 'come hither', and Lex almost -- _almost_ \-- flushed as he stepped forward and that same hand took one of his.

He didn't like the idea of being handled, but... damnit, this was _Martha Kent_.

So he let her lead him out.

 _I wonder if I'm actually stealing a march on my father,_ Lex thought. Was it at all possible that Lionel didn't know about this?

...But his exit from Belle Reeve _was_ last-minute and not part of anyone's original intention, wasn't it?

"I'll see you on Friday," Dr. William McBride said, in what Lex assumed was supposed to be a soothing manner. Maybe it was just the night and the bone-deep fatigue getting to him, but, honestly, the man had a hairstyle that bordered on Lionel's, including his beard. His hair might be straight, and almost lanky, and his beard less-carefully shorn, and he'd certainly never be a dead-ringer for his father, but, god, how was he supposed to treat the man seriously? Close his eyes, and grimace and bear it like he had during the all-in-one mental health entrance evaluation and exit interview he'd had for the last hour prior to discharge?

...which had gone almost suspiciously well -- literally _paranoia-inducing_ levels of well.

Lex supposed it helped that Lionel had not been present, but, honestly, the doctor had tossed out the destruction of the library completely without the least qualms, given that no-one had seen him -- or anyone else -- do it, and that hearsay and circumstantial evidence could not be used to declare someone as violent and possibly a danger to himself or others.

Lana had refused to cooperate, in regards to the events of that Thursday night. She'd hung up on them when the doctor had called her up on speakerphone, though Lex privately believed that she'd thought it a continuing part of what she believed to be a 'prank', not realizing that her silence would have any bearing on Lex's release from Belle Reeve, especially not a positive one.

So, all that was 'in evidence', as it were, had been a few time periods that no-one could account for that Lex could not remember offhand, a screaming fit at his staff, and Lex's self-admitted belief that he could see ghosts. All of which were apparently documented by audio-visual recordings from the security cameras both in the padded 'room' from earlier, and in the 'common area'. ...And all Lex had been able to think about _that_ was that Clark wouldn't be happy to find out that he'd been recorded. It wasn't as though trying to pretend he _hadn't_ been 'hallucinating' ghosts would have been a good idea.

Even more mind-bogglingly, Dr. McBride seemed perfectly willing to believe that Lex's 'ghosts' might, in fact, simply be a natural concluding effect to the heavy drinking, three-day-fast, and bout of what they were terming extreme hypothermia. Mental confusion and sometimes even hallucinations were a result of such low core temperature, as well as amnesia, which could also explain the memory gaps, supposedly.

The key term there being _supposedly_ , because Lex was pretty damn sure that he hadn't been suffering from hypothermia on Thursday night, despite the whole 'hiding in the cool wine cellar, drinking himself stupid' nonsense he'd put himself through earlier that night. He'd also never heard of anyone managing to suffer from hypothermia for three days straight, let alone surviving it.

He also knew that people suffering from acute hypothermia usually started to go blue at the lips and outer extremities, and Clark obviously hadn't seen any such thing at any point. So, either he wasn't showing the right symptoms for what they thought, or it wasn't _just_ a simple case of freezing himself almost to death.

...which all led back to the paranoia, because despite all this, the doctor was happy to let him leave under his own recognisance, with only a few minor 'suggestions': that he make sure that he keep at least one person he trusted nearby him at all times for a few days (easy enough to manage), that he not drive or operate heavy machinery in the meantime (Lex could live with that for a short while, and it wasn't as though Lex had a burning desire to sneak out and steal Jonathan's tractor anytime soon), that he record anything he thought relevant that he thought was out of the ordinary or related to these 'ghost' episodes (which Lex had planned on doing anyway, so that was no great hardship there), and that he check in briefly with the doctor once a week to talk things out (not something Lex would normally consider doing on his own, but if the doctor actually _was_ trustworthy... well, it would be helpful to have someone it might be safe to vent to, just a little, on the things that weren't essential to keep only to himself).

Worse, pointing all the incongruities out that he could see that _really_ ought to have him being held for observation -- at least in Lex's own opinion -- only seemed to result in making the man smile, and somehow this had worked _for_ him rather than against him. Apparently being doubtful of his own sanity and worried about what he might or might not do was considered a _good_ thing, and being truthful about such had been a deciding factor in his leaving -- a positive one.

_So, as long as I'm truthful about being 'insane', that's ok? It's trying to hide it that's bad?_

That thought seemed insane in and of itself, and Lex had wondered briefly if there was something to the old saying about the only difference about the insane asylum staff and their patients was who held the keys to the building, but then the man had gone on to explain that being truthful allowed others to help him if necessary and enabled him to interact in good will with others, and then Lex had began to believe that... no, actually, Lex _still_ thought the man was off his rocker. Totally batshit. How the hell could it be considered a responsible act, in any way, shape, or form, to allow a person who was believed to be hallucinating dead people run around in polite society?

Lex cursed under his breath as he realized that Lewis Lang had been right -- so long as he wasn't knowningly violent or a clear and present danger to himself or others, the asylum doctors couldn't care less if he was hallucinating ghosts, aliens, or big pink elephants -- he was free to go.

Dr. McBride had even had the audacity to joke about how seeing Lex as an outpatient to the attached clinic was good for the taxpayers, not wasting resources on someone who didn't need to be committed and locked away in the madhouse with the rest of them.

Lex had blandly asked the doctor what he would do if it turned out that he, Lex, was actually hallucinating ghosts from here on out or, god forbid, a meteor freak, and truly communicating with real, dead ghosts from beyond the grave.

...This apparently prompted the same response for both circumstances: that he keep seeing the doctor once a week until both of them deemed it appropriate that he have a longer time period pass between sessions. It seemed that, unbelievably, the doctor was actually open to the possibility of ghosts being real, after having to deal with the rest of the meteor freaks in town, being the most meteor-sympathetic doctor in the sanitarium.

"It'd be nice to see one of you not bow under the pressure that society brings to bear on those who dare to be different, for once," the doctor had said, and had clapped a friendly hand on his shoulder, which had just led to more shuddering mental comparisons to Lionel.

The scary thing was, Lex almost believed that the doctor had meant it.

Lex decided not to press the issue that _magic_ might be what had caused his ghost problems. _Technically, I haven't completely ruled out meteor rock phenomena. The causes for second-stage meteor mutation aren't well-known yet, after all. For all I know, any sort of power boost could induce it, after the original primary exposure._ Bringing up magic might just be taking it that one step too far, the feather that tipped the precariously-balanced scale and brought him back down, his heart weighed in chains and thick leather-and-cloth straps he'd never escape again.

And yet, even more worryingly, Lex had a distinctly odd and completely unfounded feeling that the man might actually have listened to him if he _had_ brought up the possible existence of magic ...and despite this _still_ let him go.

...But it wasn't paranoia when you _knew_ that you couldn't trust someone who had _that_ much control over your life, was it? Not when you _knew_ with **complete certainty** , having been given ample evidence of such in the past, that _nobody_ was _ever_ in your corner, doing things solely for your own good and benefit ...right?

And it _was_ control, and a very overt form of it -- under the documents he'd signed, the man could have him pulled back in for in-patient services if he felt a pressing need for it within the next six months. Lex had his very own Sword of Damocles dangling over his head for the next half-year. As part-and-parcel of this, currently he also wasn't considered fully of sound mind and body: Martha had had him sign over final control of his business decisions in trust to Gabe Sullivan.

This was only marginally better than Lionel having control of Lex's 49% of LexCorp shares. --This meant that Lionel would have to go through Gabe first ...but Gabe had a blatant and highly exploitable weakness in the form of his daughter Chloe. Lionel had never _not_ been able to steamroll his way over anyone he wanted to get what he wanted before, especially when dealing with a 'family man'. Lex may trust Gabe with running the factory and being a good employee, but to stand up to Lionel on his own, when no-one else ever had...? Let alone ever done so _successfully?_

Lex cringed at the thought of Gabe being blackmailed because of him -- possibly more than once, if he somehow managed to hold out that long in the first place -- and he'd asked Martha if Gabe had actually known what he was signing up for when she'd asked him, and he'd (apparenly) ended up telling her that he'd accept the responsibility. Martha had said that she had in fact discussed that with Gabe, and that if Lionel tried anything, that _she_ would 'handle it'. Supposedly she would even be doing _her job_ to try and dissuade him, it apparently being unbelievably bad PR for a blind father to try and stab his possibly-technically-clinically-insane son in the back before his first serious business venture was even really off the ground. (It seemed that the Talon didn't quite count in that regard.)

Lex didn't really want to think about what 'dissuading' his father from doing something Luthorian might actually entail, on her part.

The half-formed thought made him shudder in horror, if not outright disgust.

And yet, despite all this, and all of Lex's reservations and worries, he was now firmly ensconced in the backseat of the Kent's battered old pickup truck, sitting next to Clark, who was snuggling up against him in defiance of all seatbelt laws everywhere ever. Jonathan was driving.

Lex had a headache.

"So," Jonathan said, clearing his throat. "Guess we'll be getting you back to the mansion--"

"--NO!" Lex yelled immediately.

It seemed that Jonathan certainly hadn't expected that response from him -- the truck jerked before Jonathan wrestled it back under steady control again.

Lex slowly lowered the hand he'd used to abruptly cover his mouth and told himself to _stop shivering, damnit_. "I... I mean," Lex tried in a calmer tone, "I'd rather just find a place in town, if it's all the same to you. You could just drop me off on your way back to the farm." It was closer and not as out of the way, after all.

"There a reason you don't want to go back there?" Jonathan asked, eyeing him in the rearview mirror.

Lex held his tongue.

"We saw those videos of you, you know," Jonathan said. "In the common area and in that... room, earlier. Was half the reason why it took so long to come upstairs; they wanted our take on you."

Lex felt a chill run through him.

"Videos?" Clark said.

"...with audio," Lex confirmed under his breath, looking out the side window.

Clark made an angry strangled noise.

There was quiet for a moment.

"Well, no wonder none of my plans to get you out worked," Clark said grumpily, crossing his arms. "They'd already heard all of them! Stupid security cameras."

Lex couldn't help it. He ducked his head down, collapsed against Clark's shoulder and silently laughed himself sick while his friend got an outraged chorus of "CLARK!!!" from the front seat.

"Well, except for the 'mom fixing things' part -- that worked," Clark added under his breath with a quick smile, after getting lectured. A lot. Right in front of Lex.

It was weird how wholly unrepentant Clark was being about the whole thing, bordering on surreal.

"Ah," said Lex, catching his breath again, before looking towards the front seat. "This is true."

"So?" Jonathan said. "You going to enlighten us on _why_ I shouldn't just be dropping you at your front steps?"

"Besides my staff being unhappy to see me?" Lex said. ...And then he got a _look_ from Jonathan. _I'm pretty sure I'm not suppose to be an eligible target for that sort of look, given my relationship to this family, or lack thereof._ He sighed. "I take it your admission of seeing me at my worst is supposed to prompt me into acting as crazy as you think I am?"

"Oh, I doubt that's your worst," Jonathan said with some odd humor to his tone, and Martha slapped him in the arm ...to no effect. "But no, Luthor, that's only supposed to 'prompt' you to act as crazy as you _are_."

Lex blinked at him.

 _...Well, all right._ He might as well get the worst out of the way now, rather than worry about having it come up again later.

"Laura Lang told me that one of the consequences of the spell that Lana cast on Halloween was that that seance ceremony actually _did_ 'thin the veil' between life and death. ...Not those exact words. I'm not entirely sure what 'the veil' thins. The book Lana used said it was 'between this world and the next', and I suppose that information could be incorrect, though I doubt it is, because it would be odd that there be a perfect alternate from across the veil who looked exactly like someone who was dead here, if they weren't actually just _our_ dead someone. Someones. ... _Three_ someones so far that I can 'vouch' for, so far, because Lewis Lang and my mother were there, too. In the cell. With me. And I'm almost completely certain that the ghost that looked like my mother actually was my mother."

"Really," said Jonathan.

"Yes," said Lex. "I suppose that the most likely possible alternative to the 'veil' being a window on the honest-to-god afterlife would be that it instead acts as either a doorway to an alternate reality -- though one could probably argue that 'life after death' could be just that -- or a gateway to an actual 'other' world. But the latter would imply that I've been conversing with alien ghosts that look exactly like us and are our alternate number, in the benign scenario. If not, they would, by-need, be disguising themselves to look like us, and probably using mind control to screw with people to force them to believe they are what they aren't, making people like me see and do what they want... actually, that almost seems to fit, now that I think about it, except that that sounds like a B-plot to a Warrior Angel comic, so that can't really be real at all, and I can't believe that you've got me talking about the possibility of alien ghosts existing and how likely it is that Warrior Angel comics are real," Lex ended, giving Jonathan a confused look.

There was a long pause.

"That still doesn't explain why I shouldn't be taking you home," Jonathan said.

"I was in such bad straits on Saturday largely because I was hearing a bunch of ghosts and couldn't talk back or otherwise _make them shut up,_ " Lex said, angry with no-one but himself for being so _weak_. "So if you drive me back home, the entire swarm of ghosts that are probably _still right there_ , not having anyplace else to go, will most certainly gang-jump me again."

"So?"

"I would probably go crazy. Again."

"More than you are right now?"

" _Jonathan!_ "

"Yes, 'more than I am right now'," Lex parroted back, rolling his eyes and sitting back. "And _that would be bad_ ," Lex told him slowly.

Jonathan was silent for a moment.

"I think I like you better crazy," he said.

"That's not very reassuring," Lex said back, narrowing his eyes.

"Then how reassuring is it?" Jonathan parried back.

"Not as reassuring as you'd like," Lex said, eyeing the back of Jonathan's seat.

"What are you thinking right now?" Jonathan said.

"How much I want to kick the back of your seat, and whether I want to risk the consequences," Lex repied promptly.

" _Boys!_ " Martha said, finally fed up with their banter.

Clark snickered behind a hand, then bit his lip and tried to look innocent when Martha turned around in her seat and frowned at Clark in a very-unhappy-mother-ly sort of way.

"You know, I think I agree with you, Mr Kent." At the surprised look Lex got, he forged onward, conjuring up a grin, with a tongue-in-cheek, "I think I like me better crazy, too."

...make that the both of them. Oh, could Mrs. Kent _glare!_

"I'd really rather go someplace other than home, though," Lex admitted, pretending to ignore Martha's displeasure, though it wasn't easy. "I have a feeling that, ghostly presences in residence notwithstanding, it's a little too crazy there right now, even for me."

"You could stay with us?" Clark said, tossing a big-eyed plea towards his parents, who exchanged a look with Martha as she turned to face forward again.

...He was trying to convince the wrong people.

"Clark, I am _not_ staying at your house!" 

"What's wrong with our house?" Jonathan said, suspiciously like he was about to decide he was offended at the implication.

"What's wrong with--?" Lex began, shocked to the core that Jonathan was even asking. "You live _right down the street_ **from a graveyard!!!** " he protested. "I am _trying_ to stay _away_ from ghosts!" ...at least in the interim. Later he might be up for kicking in a few heads as payback for earlier, figuratively speaking.

"...Except for the Langs," Jonathan said.

"Well, no, of course not -- they're the exception. _They're_ **nice** ," Lex waved off. "And they help keep the others off me. Somehow." He frowned.

"How?" Jonathan asked.

"...I'm not really sure," Lex admitted. For some reason the thought hadn't occured to him until a little before Jonathan had voiced it himself. "Neither of them said." His frown deepened. "It might have something to do with Laura being a witch...?"

"A witch?" Jonathan echoed, shooting a glance over his shoulder at Lex and sounding a little taken aback.

"I could stay with you," Clark offered. "We could even camp out in the cemetery, if you wanted. I could pull out the tent and sleeping bags."

Lex blinked and turned to Clark. " _How_ exactly did we get from **not** wanting to be anywhere _near_ the cemetery to suddenly **staying in** the cemetery?"

"Well, you said I help keep the ghosts away," Clark said. "Or at least that they don't bother you as much when I'm nearby. And that Mr. and Mrs. Lang helped, too. So, if we camp out right by their graves, or maybe on them, then nobody else will bother you. Right?"

Lex blinked then frowned at him. "They also said that I should try to avoid picking up stragglers or followers. That implies that whatever is happening to protect me from the others isn't actually making them leave, only preventing me from hearing or seeing them while they're still there." He leveled a look at Clark. "Which is not the same thing." He ran a hand over his head. "Besides, somehow I doubt that you can follow me around at work while I'm there," _because that would hardly be appropriate_ , "as you have classes during the day, and I certainly can't follow you around at school," _even if I wanted to, which I don't._ He'd **hated** high school, and when he hadn't been hating it he'd been **loathing** it. He wasn't about to go back if he could help it, not for _any_ reason, and _especially_ not with Terrence Reynolds running the place. The man was already gunning for Clark due to his relationship with Lex, if that almost-but-not-quite on time morning had been any indication; Lex felt bad enough about that consequence of their friendship as it was, and he certainly wasn't about to make it any _worse_ for Clark if he could help it.

"Well, if they have to look for you to find you, and don't just know where you are all 'magically' and stuff, then you're probably going to have to go to them at some point, anyway," Clark pointed out. "Otherwise they'll be going to Belle Reeve to look for you when you won't be there." Then he frowned. "How'd they find you the first time anyway?"

"From overhearing staff gossip at the mansion, most likely," Lex said shortly.

"Oh," said Clark.

"Am I really only getting a choice between the graveyard and your house?" Lex asked plaintively, and no, he was _not_ whining, thank you very much. It was a perfectly valid question.

"Or your house," Jonathan put forth, and Lex winced.

"There aren't any motels open in town at this hour, and you _should_ be staying someplace tonight where someone will notice if something... goes wrong," Martha said in a tone that brooked no argument, glancing back at him.

"Fine, your home then," Lex muttered, sitting back in his seat and glowering at the windows. Stupid windows. He couldn't escape the moving vehicle from back here.

Clark just grinned and hugged him.

Lex let him. At this stage, he was too tired to protest, and he did actually like it very much when...

Something occurred to him. "I don't think I'm thinking clearly right now," he confessed to Clark.

"That's okay," Clark said. "Once we're home, we'll get you some more food, and then you can sleep some more."

 _...Didn't I just do that at the sanitarium?_ Lex thought. But Clark seemed so earnest about it.

And he was very, very tired just then.

So Lex closed his eyes, sighed, and slumped into Clark a little.

_Maybe I can just put off worrying about it all until a little bit later. Just a little..._

~*~*~*~*~*~


	5. Monday, November 4, 2002 -- Kent Farmhouse, Guest bedroom

~*~*~*~*~*~

"___."

Lex grumbled a little to himself and rolled over, burrowing under the sheets a bit. He was warm, and safe, and, most importantly, _not moving_ , thank-you-very-much.

"L_x."

Not moving. He pulled the covers up over his head. Gabe had 'final say' over anything Lex might or might not do. Either Lionel had already subverted him, or he was perfectly capable of running the factory without Luthor interference like he had for years prior to Lex's arrival in town. Screw it all, he deserved a day off, or at least a morning off to sleep in.

" _Alexander_."

Lex sighed unhappily, then turned over and yanked the covers down in a huff.

" _ **What**_ ," said Lex, glancing up at

...

Lex blinked and stumbled.

"...Mrs. Kent?" he queried, his tongue like rubber in his mouth and his head feeling heavy. Why was she gripping his shoulders so hard and looking at him like that?

He blinked and looked past her, then turned his head away slightly, rolling his neck to do so.

He was outside. _They_ were--

...Why was he outside?

_When_ had he--

Mrs. Kent wasn't shaking him -- he was shivering. Cold.

He was cold. He was very, very...

Lex suddenly realized that he was in his pajamas -- _Clark's_ pajamas, he'd had to borrow some last night -- and that he was out in the Kent's front yard.

He swallowed hard.

"...What did I do?" he asked her weakly, barely able to look at her, afraid to discover how bad it was, yet still hoping it hadn't been something slapworthy... or worse. After all, Jonathan had a rifle, didn't he?

Martha blinked at him. She went a little wide-eyed.

"Lex? You don't remember walking out here?"

Lex swallowed, then shook his head slightly, just once, watching her.

Martha frowned slightly, looking almost concerned. She seemed to search his face as she said, "You woke up in the guest room. We -- Jonathan and I -- thought we heard you talking to... yourself, for a moment, and then you stopped. We heard you come down the stairs and didn't think anything of it, really, until we heard the front door go." She sighed. "You went right out without stopping for your shoes or a coat or saying another word, and..." She dropped her hands from his arms and made a gesture at him. "Come back inside before you catch a chill."

Lex blinked at her uneasily.

Then Lex looked down at his bare feet, as he stood there in dewy, cold, wet grass that looked like it had been frost only a mere half-hour before, if that.

"Oh," he said.

Then the full impact of what had occurred finally hit him, and he grimaced slightly. It _could_ have been worse ...though it was bad enough that it had happened at all. He didn't like this -- these damnable blackouts -- _at all_. What was causing them?

...More importantly, who had he been talking to this morning, in that happenstance Martha Kent had more than alluded to just then? And about what? He couldn't remember any of it. He vaguely remembered waking, but beyond that...

Ah, he should probably get back inside first before worrying about that, possibly-haunted farmhouse or not. He could see his breath out here, and he wasn't the only one not wearing a coat, either.

Martha walked around him, patted him on the shoulder gingerly as she moved past him, heading back for the house.

Lex started to follow Martha back in, except that halfway to the door he twitched and found himself turning back with a searching look, because for a moment he'd thought he heard...

"Lex?"

_Oh, thank god._

He let out a long, slow breath and felt his shoulders drop.

"Lex?" He felt a slight tugging at his shoulder, but he only glanced back at Martha briefly, giving her a quick tired smile before turning back to--

"Lex, good morning!" Lewis said with a big grin. "What're you doing out in your PJ's like that?" he teased.

Laura, on the other hand, was frowning. "Are you all right?" she asked with a great deal more reserve and... worry?

"I--" Lex began, before there was a cacophony of sound that he couldn't quite make out properly.

He spun a quarter turn and stopped and frowned, pressing fingers to his temple.

...and then gritted his teeth as it got worse, grating at his nerves.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Martha didn't know what to think.

One minute, Lex had been sedately following her back into the house, and then he was hunched over _screaming_ at someone on ther front lawn to _stop fighting!_

\--except that there was nobody there. He was screaming at thin air.

And he _looked_ ill and deteriorating rapidly.

Martha clenched her teeth and told herself firmly that she'd seen the CCD recording at the mental institution and known what she was getting her family in for. God knew what that Summers boy would have told Lex about her son if she'd left Lex there. But he hadn't been acting violently. He wasn't supposed to have been violent.

She reached forward to grab his arm and drag him back inside, but he moved away from her. She took a step towards him--

\--and recoiled immediately, shuddering, and Martha swallowed hard at the bile that was threatening to rise. She couldn't make herself move any closer to him. An aura of disease practically rolled off of him, making her skin crawl.

This wasn't just some alcohol-induced hallucinations from a few days ago. Lex _was_ ill, and the nature of his illness--

Lex staggered forward another step away from her, then two, then three, still yelling, and now flailing his arms about madly.

"Martha?" she heard behind her, and the screen door swung open. She turned to Jonathan helplessly, not knowing what to do.

" _ **You have to stop!**_ " Lex cried out, and the sound of his voice made her shudder all over again. Jonathan looked grim and started forward, but Martha moved towards her husband to hold him back, shaking her head quickly -- neither of them could handle Lex like this, and if he lashed out--

Jonathan tried to move around her, but she grabbed him and held on. Then Lex cried out again -- "no, just-- _don't--!!_ " -- and abruptly her attention shifted back over he shoulder to him.

Lex's face was screwed up in a caricature of pain, and he staggered in place, and that snapped Martha out of it -- he hadn't moved away from that one place in the lawn, and he was beginning to act more and more desperate than angry.

Neither she nor Jonathan could stop him, but she did know one person who might be able to get through. One who Lex couldn't -- at least physically -- hurt.

So Martha turned and yelled for, " _Clark!_ " though cringing as she did so.

Clark came out of nowhere -- from somewhere in the barn doing his chores, maybe -- with a confused and worried look on his face. That was before he got a good look at what was going on, how Lex was clutching at the sides of his head now, looking so panicked, and...

"Lex?" he said, advancing forward with a quick determination towards his sick friend. But he hadn't been heard. " _Lex!_ "

"No!" Lex flailed forward at the air again suddenly, his back to Clark, and Clark just stepped up right behind him and wrapped his arms around Lex completely.

When Clark touched him, Lex made a startled sound, almost a half-groan, and his knees buckled.

"Lex, Lex _c'mon_ ," Clark said urgently, as he dragged Lex back towards him, taking a step back, and another, to get the man away from whatever he thought he was seeing and hearing. "Talk to me, Lex. Lex!"

Lex stumbled up sideways against Clark's chest, his legs like jelly, shaky like a newborn colt, trying but failing to remain completely upright on his own, and for a chilling moment Lex looked straight through her son like he didn't exist, wide-eyed and shocked as he grasped blindly onto Clark's arms like he couldn't really see him and wasn't sure he was even really there.

"Lex!"

Then his eyes refocused. "C-Clark?"

Martha saw the fleeting look of relief that shot across Clark's face. "Yeah, I'm here. Let's go inside, okay?"

"I-- they-- I _can't_ \-- they--" He was shaking his head and started to turn back.

Clark pulled him in closer, cradling his head. "It's fine, Lex. It's fine."

"No, no, they're _fighting_ , I have to--" Another flash of pain flew across Lex's face, and his knees buckled again.

But her smart, loving boy just used that as an excuse to scoop Lex up into his arms and start briskly heading across the lawn.

"It's fine, Lex." She heard him say. "They're dead. They can't hurt each other."

"They--" Lex squirmed weakly, starting to look blankly confused.

Clark started up the steps.

"Your mom and Mrs. Lang are fine," Clark said soothingly. "They're just arguing. you don't have to do anything."

"...hurts," Lex whispered, cringing and twitching and trying to pull himself closer to Clark's chest. "Can't..." One hand slowly came up in aborted motion, almost clutching at his head.

Jonathan got the door open for them, and Clark strode right in.

Her son looked grim.

"Don't listen to them," he told -- no, _demanded_ of Lex. "Listen to me, okay? Just focus on me. Breathe," Clark said, as he sat down on the couch, with Lex in his lap, and pulled Lex up against his chest until the young man was almost draped across him. "Just breathe, and let go, okay? Just..."

Martha wasn't sure if her husband saw it, but she did.

She saw Lex breathe out, and his breath steamed the air.

\--The warm air _inside the house_ steamed when he breathed out.

Lex looked dazed for a moment.

And then he collapsed like a rag doll.

And the odd look of sheer and utter _relief_ that crossed his face before his eyelids slid shut was just...

Whatever had been so off-putting for her earlier was gone now.

Martha slowly stepped forward and carefully lay her palm across Lex's forehead, ignoring her son for a moment as he tilted his head up at her, probably inquisitively or uncertainly.

Lex's eyelids fluttered, and she almost had to move her hand away in shock. Lex was cold as ice. Colder, almost.

He was colder than it had been outside, even if he was slowly warming under her touch, which shouldn't have been possible.

She slowly moved her hand away from him, frowning, and Lex murmured some nonsense that she couldn't here, as Clark shifted his hold on his friend and cradled him even closer.

She clenched her jaw grimly and her eyes met her son's.

_I told you so,_ he looked at her, without any sort of apology. If anything, it was possessive. He was bound and determined to help his friend, with _whatever_ this was.

And her son wasn't asking, or even begging her, for help.

_Oh, Jon. We are in over our heads on this one._

"I'll make up some chicken broth for him," she told her son, straightening. "It'll help warm him up. --Jonathan, see if you can find that old electric blanket up in the attic," she said, looking up at her husband, who was openly frowning at whatever he was seeing out of this.

"Mom, the heat might help, but the electricity might make it worse," Clark told her, concerned. "Lex said something earlier..."

"We'll find out, and be careful about it," she said. To her husband, she added, "Grab an extension cord, too, while you're up there -- but bring down a couple of the quilted blankets for now," she amended, realizing that they only had the one thing afghan down there for now. Clark was carefully pulling it off teh back of the couch and wrapping it around them, but that wouldn't hardly be enough.

Jonathan grumbled but nodded and went off to do her bidding.

"If he doesn't warm up within a minute or so, we're getting him upstairs and into the tub, understand?" she told her son. Clark nodded.

At her back, as she headed into her kitchen, she heard a quiet, "Thanks, mom."

She smiled as she set a pot on the stove and got to cooking, because that was more than enough for her.

~*~*~*~*~*~


End file.
